Free The Fix by Nick Earls Page A

‘It seemed like one of the better bits.’ He was smiling, as if we could be okay about the less good bits now.
    â€˜But it was made up. It only existed because you were teaching yourself to build websites back when you were pretending you weren’t going to be a lawyer. The whole thing was a fake.’
    â€˜Hey, the evidence is there to support it. You wrote some great fake articles. Not even fake articles. You got them published.’ He pretended to look around the room, as if the wrong people might be listening. ‘You might have even accepted some cash for it. So don’t go holier-than-thou on me. Anyway, it was a good website.’
    â€˜I don’t remember any cash.’
    â€˜Convenient.’
    There had been no cash.
    â€˜Max Visser is trawling music vendors across the electronic universe trying to track down an album called Tangerine Coloured Hot Spot that never existed. Never existed. ’ I had put on a tone of exasperation, but it was hard not to laugh at the prospect of it. ‘If he starts featuring you, me and your anime fantasy chick as his screen saver I don’t want to know about it.’
    â€˜I’ve still got that screen saver, probably. A version of it. I could sneak it onto his computer one day while he’s riding in to work.’
    â€˜Don’t even think about it. Stop thinking about it. And what is going on with the chat part of the site? Ithad me thinking I’d actually been in a band. I felt like one of those Days of Our Lives characters coming back after years of amnesia.’
    He laughed. ‘Sorry. I would have told you. In different circumstances. That was just me, a couple of years ago. I got bored for five minutes. I went looking for the site, figuring it wouldn’t be there, and there it was. Pristine. I don’t know how. It’s not like I pay anything for it. It must have slipped into some accounting wormhole or something, some warp in the space–time continuum. So, I played around a bit. Without even the intention of messing with your head. That’s just a bonus. I wish I’d been there when you read it.’
    â€˜Arsehole. I’ve had second album pressure all afternoon. I mean, how do you follow up Tangerine Coloured Hot Spot? Particularly now that I’ve seen at least one person call it a classic.’ In the low light of the restaurant he looked more like himself, more like the way he used to. Only the suit was different. ‘And where would Frank Ainsworth be if you’d been bunkered down in a studio with me and the top half of your anime fantasy chick trying to knock out album number two?’
    It had been a joke, but it kind of crumpled.
    â€˜Yeah, well,’ he said. ‘No second album since there wasn’t a first, I guess. And I never did find that girl a good bottom half.’
    â€˜Is Frank different since the siege?’ It was supposed to come out sounding like conversation, but it probably didn’t.
    â€˜How do you mean “different”?’ He straightened one of his cufflinks.
    â€˜I mean not the same.’ It shouldn’t have been a hard question. ‘Is he more irritable, more likely to react to things? Is the way he deals with people different?’
    â€˜Oh, right.’ He laughed. ‘They book you to get me through the interviews, and as some kind of bonus you diagnose Frank’s PTSD? Or is that part of the service?’ He waited for me to say something. At the bar behind him, a waiter was lighting tea-light candles and dropping each one into its own small glass bowl. ‘No. He’s just the same. Frank is Frank.’
    â€˜When I was in his office on Monday, the phone rang and he went nuts at whoever called. Then today I overheard him talking about coming down on someone like a ton of fucking bricks.’
    Ben started to say something, but then held it back. ‘He’s not known for being indirect.’
    â€˜Does it ever